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Topic Review (Newest First)

03-24-2013 12:51 AM

amc49

Yeah. Screw with it. Screw with it hard. There are 50 ways to bring the hood in if you have done body work, cheap crap Chinese hoods will require every method.

The hood latch assembly can be made to move up and down and more than the bolt holes allow for. The two rubber bumpers in front on radiator support can be screwed up or down to suit what the front of hood wants. When the new position doesn't want to close properly then the spring pin sticking up can be shortened a 1/4" to allow easier latching, think about it first, you can't put back on what you take off. The catch loop can be moved around a bit sideways too.

Very little comes from hinges, you can twist hood around sideways and corner to corner, and shim up/down to get the closed height at back of hood corners on with fender height.

You may need to loosen fender tops a bit to move them slightly to bring things in closer. I have actually slit the inner flange of fender to get one fender line matching hood line closer after getting a Chinese fender to go with the Chinese hood. The fender line was straight when it needed a bit of curve down low. Fun. If careful you can move a headlight up, down or angle more to suit too.

I've actually bent the hood back corners by hand a bit up or down to bring them closer in line too.

You can widen any holes you need to on, just think about it, sometimes what needs to be done not immediately evident until you widen holes till useless and then you realize that will not work for the move you're looking for.

There is a certain amount of interference necessary between the two front rubber bumpers and the latch assembly. The rubbers end up a bit too high for the height of the latch, that is so the hood bears down on them firmly when dropped from say 12 inches plus to impact the latch. The extra dig into the rubbers makes the latch dampened so that it does not rattle when driving. Once hood is lined overall, I set up the damp by backing off rubbers and setting latch height while holding UP on hood, get it right then take the slack out of latch by raising bumpers slowly till hood back lined with headlight depth and no slack in latch, then raise bumpers maybe 1/2 turn more to get the damp. Feel it out by dropping hood and wiggling it up and down, every one is a bit different.

There's other tricks to cure a hood that won't latch consistently, but later on that..............

03-23-2013 06:30 PM

Toother1321

OEM hood adjustment.

I searched and found some other posts about hood installation and fitment, and none of them really applied to my situation. I bought a new OEM hood from rockauto, bolted it on and the alignment isn't even close! There is about a 1 inch gap at the front of the drivers side fender and about an 1.8" gap at the windsheid on the drivers side fender. The latch goes into the catch, but the post on the latch doesnt even come close to fitting in the whole it's supposed to so the hood won't close all the way. It is like the entire hood is sitting slanted on the car. I tried bending the mounts but I just can't get them right. Most hoods I have put on cars in the past have some kind of adjustments built into the hinges. On these hinges the mounting holes are the same size as the bolts and leave no room to twist or re-position the hood before tightening them. Is there some way to adjust the hood that I'm missing, or should I just widen up the holes to give me some play. Does anybody have any advice to get my OEM hood lined up right???